The Great Breakfast Battle Victory

"What do you want for breakfast?" It seems like such a simple question.

"Pancakes!" yells Henry. "Waffles!" Julia yells back. "No! Pancakes!" retorts Henry."It's waffle day!" Julia shouts.

"It's the third Saturday of an odd month, so that means...pancakes." I answer with authority, using the Infallible Stealth Mother Breakfast Food Algorithm, i.e. choosing pancakes because they're easier to make than homemade waffles.

For too long these breakfast battles have breached the peace of our lazy weekend mornings. My bit of batter diplomacy — alternating pancakes and waffles on the weekends — worked brilliantly and kept the tears at bay, unless we were away, had a special activity planned, were having guests, or were missing some waffle/pancake ingredient. All of which seemed to happen just about every weekend, leaving someone sullenly sipping their orange juice.

Then Nana visited and solved the problem in two seconds.

"We're having paffles," she announced. The kids looked confused, their customary argument derailed by the new development.

"They're part pancake, part waffle — a pancake and waffle combined," my mother calmly explained. Full disclosure: she's a former elementary school teacher as well as a mother of two, so she's flown a lot of missions.

By just adding two beaten egg whites to a regular pancake batter recipe, my mother created a tasty hybrid that can be used in both the waffle iron or the pancake griddle, eliminating the need to choose one or the other. And did I mention they're delicious?

Blissfully unaware that she had brokered an historic peace accord (my two children could show Dr. Seuss's dueling Zax a thing or two), my mother taught me the recipe.

"Who wants a paffle?" I confidently asked the next weekend. My children answered together: "Me!"

Music to my ears.

This bit of passed-down mother wisdom has me hopeful for the future: Perhaps my paffles won't flip too far from the griddle.